


Training: A Hands-On Manual

by yuletide_archivist



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-30
Updated: 2008-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1636535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(More James/M, than just M.  Enjoy, (hopefully).  No one knows how James Bond became James Bond. But then. They don't exactly cover that in the instruction manual</p>
            </blockquote>





	Training: A Hands-On Manual

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kajikia

 

 

They gave him an instruction manual, of course. But no matter how many times he read it all the way through, from front cover to end cover and back again, he never found anything about the ache that followed every mission. It wasn't so much the lack of sleep, or the never finding time to eat more than a martini ("that's shaken, not stirred", with his occasional bagel or four-course dinner-if nothing else, a James Bond looked good when eating); it wasn't even the running from port to port, the never having a moment to himself anymore. No; no, what he missed the most was the companionship, the knowledge that when he came home, he was coming home. 

Mostly what he found in the manual was the useful, but the asinine stuff. It was the same lessons they taught him in the preliminary classes: prove he could shoot a gun, throw a knife, woo and bed a woman (who, obviously, was pretending to be more clueless than she really was), wear a three piece suit while shooting a gun and throwing a knife, drive a car while shooting a gun and throwing a knife, use sarcasm to his advantage, find clues in the most obscure of places, how to play dumb, how to scale a wall in less than ten minutes, how to hold his breath underwater for longer than four minutes.

(Um, excuse me? - he felt like a young boy, too reminded of the long days he spent at Eaton, where the professors ignored him, and he amused himself with the star Rugby player - You'd be dead in four minutes. It's physically impossible.)

M didn't flinch, just shuffled her paperwork and gave him that half-glance under hooded eyes. (Make it not impossible.)

That: that had all been before lunch. He hadn't even met Q until the second day, and that had been another set of lessons: what to touch, what to never touch, what to never touch even if Q said it was ok to touch. Q or R or S. Everyone but him went by initials. And even he heard rumors; originally, they wanted to call him J.

(How did the name come into being?) It was something he had wondered since he had been pulled in. His name had been erased, and traded for another.

It was a mistake to ask.

M was overseeing his first fencing lesson. He had been deflecting his opponents for three hours straight, when M had finally nodded, only still mostly satisfied, but still allowing him a break for water.

(In the field, she warned him, you're not going to get a break. - She paused, chastised loudly for stupid questions, ordering the instructor to continue. He had scarcely got any water.)

The fencing instructor answered. (The name has been there for as long as the man has.)

He perfected his techniques, proved his skills on a horse, and forced several crash courses in several languages: Russian and Mandarin and Japanese and Italian and Spanish and French and Greek and Turkish and German and Polish and Vietnamese and Korean. More he couldn't remember; several individual dialects. He was given books and cassettes and books on cassettes, and told to expect to have a native speaker of each test him the next morning, no English in any conversation allowed.

He passed, of course, he passed. 

Three months, and he was as ready as he would ever be.

(Does every man get only this much time?) He couldn't help the teasing grin.

(If it were up to me, every man would get less.) M didn't blink, and he made his first kill. She was right, the second was considerably easier. 

There was no congratulations, just a few hours rest, and he was handed the reports and a plane ticket. First mission, and he did everything wrong. 

M waited for him when he came back, ad briefly she allowed some compassion to show through. He assured he was fine, and M schooled her features.

(Perhaps I promoted you to soon, she echoed, watching him. Perhaps some time to rest.)

(No.) His response was harsh. M nodded, handed him the reports.

He read the instruction manual again. Still nothing he wanted to know. A James Bond didn't wear blue jeans with ratty old tee shirts while he did his yard work. A James Bond didn't go food shopping, or celebrate birthdays with chocolate cake and New Years with glasses of champagne and foolish hats. A James Bond didn't wear trainers, or worry about things like doctor's appointments or how long since he had last been to the dentist. He didn't play rugby games or have anywhere to call his own.

No. A James Bond saw the globe. He never stayed with a woman long enough to remember her name. He had a new car every week, and a new high-tech, high-gadget watch every mission. He thought of creative ways to lose or break while the watch, to keep from counting the ceiling or floor tiles while in bed with said woman. He enjoyed the sex with said woman. He captured bad guys, and saved the world, repeatedly. If anyone asked, he didn't technically-legally-exist. 

But then. Most of what he did wasn't legal anyway.

It helped to know that there had been others before him, that there'd be still more others after him.

(Yes. But how did James Bond come around? Who created him? Who first had need of him?) It was still a question he couldn't help asking.

(There are stories...)

(What are these stories?)

(They've been lost, like most. Changed with every incarnation, every incantation.)

(Someone must know.)

(Someone always knows. - M sighed, swirled the wine in her glass. - The first James Bond was the first. He saved... He started a tradition, a name in Her Majesty's Secret Service.)

(Surely we are more than just a name?)

(No. In this case-in your case-it is the name that makes the man, not the man that makes the man.)

(But my real name...)

M almost smiled. (Your real name ceased to exist the moment you took on this mantle. Are you always this inquisitive?)

(Yes.)

(A James Bond does not ask questions about his own past.)

There was no history in the instruction manual. No funny little anecdotes to intersperse the lecture style of the paragraphs. No identity crises help lines. No answers as to why the first James Bond became James Bond, or why Her Majesty had need of him, and still had need of him. Or what happened to him, to any of them, after they had retired.

A James Bond never died while in service. Harmed or hurt, maybe. They gave bulletproof vests for a reason. But never never died. Somehow, he was always saved.

It just wasn't done. It wasn't dignified.

A James Bond was always dignified.

Always impeccable in his tuxedo. A James Bond always found an excuse to wear a tuxedo at least once per mission.

It was in chapter eleven, paragraph eighteen, right after the paragraph about the proper way to wear those gold cufflinks.

Yes. A James Bond was certainly perfection.

(What did happen to the very first?)

(He... left, eventually. He grew weary of the globetrotting. He slowed down some in his twilight years. He stayed a while, to train his successors, never could quite bring himself to leave.)

(How many are we?)

(You are the seventh. You will certainly not be the last.)

(What was his name?)

(Who?)

(The very first...)

(Oh, it's written somewhere. No one here remembers. It was too long ago. What was your name?)

(Oh, it's written somewhere. I've been here for quite some time already. No one there would remember. - He drew in breath sharply, realizing. Right, he paused, sighed, Right.)

The manual doesn't cover retirement. It doesn't mention what happens after one leaves the service. He visits every room, wanders every hallway, inspects every cranny: for something. A portrait, a note, a journal, a piece of clothing.

There are rumors that to fit in a James Bond will wear board shorts, Hawaiian shirts, sandals and sunglasses.

They're not rumors, he now knows. He's worn them. 

But still he finds no evidence, and he continues his missions, never lingering on what he has left behind.

There isn't the time: always a private jet to catch or fly, always a damsel to save, always a world to save. If he finds himself more attracted to the man he's supposed to defeat, then he'll just move quicker-harder-underneath the woman's sheets. If he finds he's forgotten a word of another language, he'll just substitute another.

He knows mathematics and biology and geology and chemistry and physics. He knows classical literature and how to play seven different instruments. He knows how to shoot a gun, and how to throw a knife, and how to deactivate a bomb. He can tell when someone is lying by the way their eyes do or don't move. He knows how to tie a tie perfectly, and how to wear those gold cufflinks.

He knows history, just not his own.

He knows how to come back alive from every mission he's sent on, and not just because a James Bond never dies.

(Perhaps I promoted you to soon?) M's voice is wry, but her smile gives her away.

He grins, pours her another drink, and eyes flit to her crossed legs. (I'm betting you've said that to every man you've trained.)

(Perhaps, she laughs, and this time it is a genuine sound, you are finally ready.)

He's comforted. His feet fit the shoes, and he wears the suit perfectly. Next bar he;s at, he mutters the words (that's shaken, not stirred) without missing a beat, slides the olive off the toothpick with just his teeth.

He's ready.

He's ready.

(What did you say your name was?) The voice his low, and his eyes flit over. The words roll off his tongue, the smile in place, if just slightly empty. But then no one notices that.

No one ever does.

He smiles, and he leans in close, the smell of aftershave in the air, and for once, it's not his.

(Bond. James Bond.) 

 


End file.
